1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to techniques for controlling operating parameters, such as power consumption, in a computer system.
2. Related Art
As energy costs increase, the power consumed by a computer system is becoming an important factor in calculating the total cost-of-ownership of the computer system. Manufacturers of computer systems typically include a power-consumption rating for computer systems. Unfortunately, manufacturers typically report the peak power consumption of computer systems, whereas most computer systems typically operate at utilization rates substantially less than a 100% utilization level.
One solution to this problem is to generate a power-consumption-versus-utilization plot for a computer system which indicates the power consumption at a given utilization level. Unfortunately, when a workload is started on a computer system, the computer system typically devotes substantially all of its resources to complete the workload. When the workload is completed, the utilization of resources within the computer system returns to a substantially minimal level (e.g., idle load). There is no existing technique which effectively generates a workload which can be set at a specified utilization level (e.g., 15% CPU utilization) for a given time period.